We Have to Take a Photo for Our Records

This is late in coming but I wanted to write about it anyway (from the week of 11/29/11)
This week, I’m asking you to take us into the moment your favorite photograph of yourself was taken, to show us who you were then and what the photograph means–in 300 words.

 

---

I didn't want to do it so my mom did it for me. Red and blue lights strained through the stupid window. He wouldn't even come out. His dumb brother had the nerve to go get his gun. I wasn't scared though. I sat there. Face bloated and red.
Head ringing.
He was as calm as ever now that it was over. I remember. I like to minimize it but I remember. He pulled me by my hair. I had extensions at that time so there was a lot to pull.
His brother sat in the other room listening to me cry and scream.

I pleaded for him to stop. Cried my questions of why???? I recall laying on the floor in a fetal position and his fists hitting me in my back and and stomach - like a 1-2, 1-2 flurry. I had never been punched in the ribs before.

He never touched my face. I guess that is why I minimized it.

When he was questioned he had the gall to say, "We got into a little tussle..." Tussle? Really? Tussling would suggest that I was fighting back. Tussling would suggest there was some type of struggle. We didn't tussle.

You. Went. Off. On. Me. With. Your. Repressed. Memories. of. Your. Mother. Being. Beaten. And. Tried. To. Recreate. The. Scenes. From. Your. Childhood.

That is how I was trying to talk. Hiccupping, out of breath. I didn't want him to go to jail.
The mental chains of abuse creates a devotion to the abuser. The police took him anyway.


They had to take a photo of me for their records. I remember the photo. They used it in court.
It was the face of fear & love - all juxtaposed. That WAS NaLonni.

But I am not her.



Note:  The prompt was to write about a favorite photo – kind of weird that I would pick that particular Polaroid but it is one of my favorite, least favorites. 

It reminds me that I never want to carry the look of defeat and fear again.  I never want to subject myself to a man who really isn’t a man at all.  No one likes to talk about their stint in the pen – that’s what I call it – my time with my abuser. 

I don’t talk about it that much because of the  miracle that came from that dead withered relationship.  It was my baby that gave me wings to fly. 

It took a year of hate & 3 months of love for me to finally let it go:  One year from that incident above  where I played the same record.  Visited his sorry ass in jail.  Went with him to his anger management classes – you know for support?  Ignored pleas from my family.  Believed that our child would change his behavior.

Until he tried to choke me with my baby girl in my arms. 

She was 3 months old.  If I stayed, what would have happened to her?  What would she think of me?  Would she know of this abuse?  Would I tell her?  What if he hurts her?  He could.  He doesn’t really care.  Do YOU care NaLonni?  Do you love this child?  I did love her.  I loved her more than I loved myself.
I didn’t care that she looked like him.  She was the beauty of the beast.  The grain of sand in my oyster shell.
My Pearl.

That was enough.